Word about Forbes articles - they are troll baits from "Contributors" who make money based on pageviews that their article creates.

So while I love Tesla, this continuous blabbering about them hurting Porsche, BMW, MB, Lexus and whatnot sales while delivering 20k cars per year is just simply funny.

 

Elon Musk's Tesla Model S electric road trip: 5 kids, 3,200 miles, 9* hours of charging

With his legions of vociferous fans, there has been no bigger champion for the electric vehicles from Tesla Motors than the man at the helm, Elon Musk. Musk's latest promotional event to prove the power of EVs will be a cross-country drive in a Model S, using the rapidly growing network of Superchargers along the way.

Musk first proposed this trip back in May when Tesla announced an expansion to the Supercharger network. At the time, Musk said he wanted to retrace the route of a college road trip, but this time with his five children in the car. With the optional rear-facing seats installed the Model S can seat 7, if some are small enough. On Twitter, Musk said trip planning is done, and the six-day, 3,200-mile trip should only require nine hours of charging. He added, "At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, never just for charging itself." But we assume he's not including overnight charging in that time, since six Supercharger fill-ups – which can each provide three hours of driving – will not be enough for the entire coast-to-coast trip.

To be honest, driving across the country in a Model S – to say nothing of other EVs – is a feat that's been done before, but when Mr. SpaceX loads up the kids and goes for a drive, people pay attention. People also noticed when, during a much shorter drive, a writer from The New York Times managed to run out of electricity last winter. In response, Tesla fans proved the drive up the East Coast could be done.

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/09/05...ds-3-200-mile/

 

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...s_p85_arrival/

 

Tesla was nice enough to bring a Model S to be test driven extensively. It really is an amazing vehicle and its really fast in S trim.. The huge screen is just cool and the tech is really amazing.

It just looks beautiful as well, just a great looking car. It could have a 100hp V-12 and people would buy it, its gorgeous.

Looks better here

 

those Vossen's really set it off

 

Although their vehicles are clearly not for me, I'm pretty impressed with the job Tesla is doing and their potential for future growth...especially after buying up their primary rival, Fisker Motors. I tend to invest most of my money quite conservatively, preferring safe and dependable municipal tax-free bonds to the risky and volatile stock market. But I'm actually considering buying up some Tesla stock. The price of admission, right now (i.e. the share-price) is rather high, having risen substantially lately. But, of course, the not-so-low price of admission has to be considered in context to its future potential. Even so, if I did invest in Tesla, it would not be a very high amount, overall, in relation to the rest of my portfolo.....some of my principles don't change, no matter what.

 

What is Tesla doing looking for autonomous driving engineers?

Like iPhone acolytes reading Apple patents for clues to future tech, it's possible to look at the job posting from Tesla Motors to get a clue about next-gen models. That's what our friend David Herron did over at Torque News when he discovered more details on the automaker possibly building self-driving electric vehicles. Musk has been talking about self-driving cars since at least May, when he said he prefers the term "autopilot." More recently, Musk told Financial News that his company hopes to have autopilot technology in its cars in three years.

That's way sooner than other companies are talking. Google is testing robot drivers and figures the technology could be ready in three-to-five years if the legal hurdles can be overcome, but of course the search company doesn't build cars. Nissan has promised autonomous vehicles by 2020 and other automakers agree with the end of the decade timeline. The trick to Tesla's autopilot system is that it doesn't really result in an autonomous car. Instead, according to Reuters, the Tesla system would handle 90 percent of the driving, leaving the human driver there to, what exactly? Pay attention to the road 100 percent of the time for the 10 percent of the time she needs to do something? To us, a 90-percent self-driving car sounds more like an incredibly safe one, but not one with autopilot. Musk told the Financial Times that fully autonomous cars will take longer than three short years.

The official job listing – one of them, at least – says Tesla is looking for a radar hardware engineer who, "has 3-10 years of design and release responsibility on sensors (Radar, Cameras, Lidar, and Ultrasound)/active safety systems. This engineer will be responsible for translating Tesla's autopilot roadmap into active safety features and into requirements. The engineer will actively drive the features into production and evaluate future technologies." Interesting choice of verb, there, don't you think?

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/09/18...ing-engineers/

 

Tesla Model S EVs have driven 3.2M miles on Supercharger power

Gallery:
http://green.autoblog.com/photos/tes.../#photo-99745/

How much do Tesla Model S owners like driving for free? A lot, apparently. Since unveiling the Tesla-only fast charging system almost exactly a year ago, over three million miles have been put on Tesla EVs thanks to Supercharging. Tesla announced today that, "More than 3.2 million miles have been charged at Tesla Superchargers, offsetting about 130,500 gallons of gas." At today's average gas price of $3.472 a gallon, that's $453,096. Or, as David Sohl said on Twitter, that's roughly the equivalent of Tesla Motors giving away five free cars.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised that the sometimes-solar-powered Superchargers will be free forever. To get more people to know about this growing network, Musk will be adding a few thousand miles to that overall total when he makes a crosscountry road trip with his five kids in a Model S later this year. The route is mapped out and the charging stops are planned, so keep an eye out for the Musk brood at a Supercharging station near you.

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/09/23...charger-power/

 

450k in free gas really isnt much.

 

450k free gas in the charger's infancy is respectable.

Develop the network, and the buyers will come.
So much solar energy is just wasted on asphalt. If that can be harvested for ever cheaper costs, bring it on.
I'm sure when the first gas autos came along, there weren't many gas stations.

 

Apples to Oranges. There was no competition for the car when it debuted over 100 years ago so development was expedited and it was an opportunity for many people to enter a new business. Today with regulations and an oil industry that is as powerful as it comes and with people happy with their cars its not as simple as just making a network.

 

i doubt there is any politics in question here... Oil companies are expanding greatly into power generation and they own some of the biggest solar panel producers in the world.

 

/Subscribe. Coolest car ever... I must have one. I will have one... I wonder what my GX is worth these days?

 

I heard there is a car rental company that you can rent Tesla's from now.

 

don't leave us hanging, what company?!